


Jarhead

by bastardbones



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: 80's Music, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Owada Mondo, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Confessions, Crushes, Drinking, Everything Hurts, F/M, Haircuts, Hook-Up, Implied/Referenced Incest, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), References to Depression, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27873350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastardbones/pseuds/bastardbones
Summary: "Hey, man," Mondo says, casually.His hair is gone."Yeah, man, they cut that shit right off," Mondo sort of laughs.
Relationships: Ishimaru Kiyotaka/Oowada Mondo, Kuwata Leon & Nakajima Kanon, Kuwata Leon/Maizono Sayaka, Kuwata Leon/Oowada Mondo, Owada Daiya & Owada Mondo
Comments: 28
Kudos: 92





	Jarhead

**Author's Note:**

> This is another fic I wrote in three days. I have so many sad, gay feelings for these characters lmaooo.
> 
> Please listen to "Straight To Hell" by The Clash.

* * *

"Oowada?" Number 4 says. "I think he's in jail again."

"What?"

_Swing._

"Yeah, I think he's in jail,” Number 4 is saying. "That's what I heard."

"Yeah, I heard he got in a fight,” adds Number 12. "I think he punched a guy."

_Swing._

"Oh, yeah," Number 7 joins in. "Some guy was fucking Oowada's girl and he totally went apeshit."

_Swing._

"Jesus," Number 18, Leon, sighs. 

Foul ball.

***

The first time Leon saw him, Mondo was maybe four feet tall, walking to school with a dark haired man. For a while, Leon assumed that the man was his father. The man would get on his knee before dropping Mondo off, squeeze his shoulder or teasingly pinch his cheek, then disappear down the sidewalk. 

Mondo got into a lot of fights. In elementary school, Leon remembers how Mondo started whaling on Ishimaru, the goody two shoes, for something about chewing gum in class. Mondo leaped out of his chair and got a few hits in before the teacher pulled them apart. As a final _fuck you_ Mondo spat the gum right into Ishimaru’s hair. The kid cried his eyes out. Ishimaru’s dad was a cop and he came into the school wearing his badge and his uniform and all the grade schoolers _ooooh_ -ed. The dark haired man—not Mondo’s dad, but his brother—he came in, too. Ishimaru clung to his dad and Mondo kept his face down, his face red like a beet, as the teacher reprimanded him and the cop glared and his brother sighed. 

Afterward, Leon saw Mr. Ishimaru and Mister Oowada in the hallway. 

“Our folks passed away over the winter,” Mister Oowada had said. “Mondo keeps actin’ up. I’ll set ‘im straight. I’m real sorry ‘bout this, sir.”

He was young, about 18, and he was trying his damndest. Mr. Ishimaru was sympathetic to the situation, he gave Mister Oowada a firm handshake and they went their separate ways. It was strange. Mister Oowada was covered in tattoos, he looked like the kind of man Mr. Ishimaru would wrestle into handcuffs. Leon made eye contact with Mondo’s brother, stared into his dark eyes and it was like looking into the future. 

“An eye for an eye,” Mondo answered when asked. “That’s what men do. That’s what my brother said.”

His head was shaved to match Ishimaru. Two bald headed boys. He said his brother had sat him down with a hair clipper and gave him a choice. Either Mondo could shave his own head or his brother would do it for him. All actions must have consequences. Mondo chewed his lip, but he didn’t cry or nothing. Then he shaved his head. 

Mondo came to school with a bag of his own hair. Before class started, he tapped Ishimaru on the shoulder and the boy shrieked. Whether that was done to antagonize him or done in some act of atonement—the way gangs do, how a man cuts off his finger and offers it in a napkin—Leon wasn’t sure. Mondo’s brother was a gang leader. Well, that was the rumor. Whenever someone asked Mondo about it, he told them to fuck off or simply barked like a dog. Sometimes it was funny when he did that, but sometimes it was scary. Mondo was scary. He always had cuts on his face, too. His growth spurt hit early and he was always knocking into something. 

The girls were afraid of him. He cornered girls without realizing, not realizing how much bigger he was or how fast he was growing. He tried asking a girl out and she started whimpering before he could finish. She started saying that he touched her boobs, that he was scary AND gross, but Leon doubted her story. Mondo didn’t talk to girls for a while after that. 

The boys had a sleepover. Mondo, Ishimaru, Hagakure, and a few others. They played video games and every time someone passed Ishimaru the controller, he simply handed it to Mondo. They were kinda friends now, but they still argued. Ishimaru brushed his teeth and the other boys teased him for going to bed early. Leon joined him and that shut everyone up. They had made a nest on the floor, layers of blankets and pillows and even a couch cushion or two. With his back turned to Leon, Ishimaru had said:

“I think I like Mondo.”

Leon pretended to be asleep.

Sometime after midnight, Mondo had shook him awake. He was holding a bottle of bleach and a few other things. He said something like, _“Lemme do your hair.”_

(Leon was a natural blond. It felt like a curse, the way he stood out among all his dark haired peers. His father was Japanese, but his mother was English and frankly, he looked a lot like her. His mom had an interesting life. She was born in England, then immigrated to the U.S. before joining the military. She had met his father while stationed in Japan.)

Mondo fried his own hair to a bronzy hue, but decided not to color it. He had blue, green, and red. He let Leon choose and the choice was obvious. Mondo washed the dye out in the sink, with bare hands, with gentle strokes. A boy had never touched Leon like that, like how a girl might. His face burned and now his hair was red and Mondo had stained his fingers.

Leon tried out for the baseball team and it was like a magic switch. Overnight, girls were stopping him after class and offering him homemade pastries. A girl brought him _daifuku_ and he thanked her with a kiss on the cheek, up on the rooftop, with an audience of jealous classmates. Mondo was smoking by the fence when that happened. He flicked his cigarette and bailed early that day. It was probably around then that he was sent to juvenile detention for the first time. Someone said he got busted for tagging a building. Someone else said he beat a guy over the head with a baseball bat.

Mondo got out on Valentine’s Day. Everyone was too busy fawning over their gifts to really notice he came back. Leon bought flowers for the most popular girl in school, just like twenty other chums had. Sayaka Maizono had guys kissing the ground she walked on. Not only was she gorgeous, but she was a talented, too; a teenage celebrity. A lot of people said they could see Leon getting with her, that they would be a total power couple, the king and queen of the academy. He cracked under the pressure and with his eyes closed, kissed her on the walk home from school. Leon noticed Mondo standing in the middle of the street. One car honked at him and then another, until it became an explosion of noise. A police car came around the corner and then there was Mr. Ishimaru, coaxing Mondo out of traffic.

“I heard his brother died,” Sayaka said. 

Sayaka would comb her fingers through his hair. Well, what was left of it. He had to keep it short for baseball now, because apparently baseball was his entire life. He earned an athletic scholarship and was set to go to a prestigious university. There was no debating it. After graduation, he was going to be a star, but not the kind he wanted. What he wanted was to play music. For his birthday, Sayaka gave him an acoustic guitar, because she had actually been listening to all his bitching and moaning. He practiced until his fingers bled. He tried writing a song about his girlfriend, but somewhere in the middle, he changed the pronouns and it sounded a lot better. He never did play it for Sayaka. 

Mondo started spending more time with Ishimaru and less time in detention. Leon would watch them sit together during lunch, Ishimaru, tapping his pencil at an equation and Mondo, looking out the window. Leon could have joined them; all he had to do was ask. Unfortunately, he had a reputation to uphold now. He was cool now. Ishimaru was a loser and no one talked to Mondo, because he didn’t have much to say anymore. He slept in class a lot and sometimes when the teacher called him up to the board, he would zone out and drop the chalk. A few people laughed, but Leon didn’t think it was funny.

Once, Leon had seen Mondo slide his back down the lockers and collapse onto the floor. Ishimaru was there, too. The honor student dropped to his knees and held onto his friend. Mondo was making this noise and it took a few seconds for Leon to realize that it was him crying. Leon pretended not to notice, the way everyone else at school pretended not to notice. Until Mondo stopped bleaching his hair and that was all Leon could think about. 

Leon had said something like, _“Hey, man, can I do your hair?”_ It was something like that. Mondo hesitated then shook his head. Leon tried not to take it personally. He just wanted Mondo to feel better. He wanted Mondo to feel as good as he had felt, back when Mondo dyed his hair. Leon had never stopped coloring it red. He wondered if Mondo even noticed his hair, the way he noticed Mondo’s. 

A few weeks before graduation, Ishimaru was pacing Mondo’s locker. He had flowers in one hand and a note in the other and Leon wanted to die. 

“Mondo doesn’t swing that way,” Leon scoffed. 

When he said that, Ishimaru started to cry. 

Leon had no right doing that. Really, he had no clue whether Mondo was straight, gay, or what. All he knew was that he was jealous of Ishimaru, for taking a leap that Leon was too scared to take himself. He was jealous, because whatever Ishimaru had with Mondo, Leon wanted, too. He wished Mondo had spat gum in his hair. Leon, he wished he wasn’t such an ego-centric, straight-passing tool and would just dump his girlfriend and sit with the weird kids at lunch.

“I heard he has a girl,” Leon lied. 

Ishimaru slipped the tear stained note into his pocket. He gave the flowers to Leon and suggested Sayaka might like them. 

On the walk home, Leon picked apart the petals. _Loves me, loves me not, loves me…_ Then he threw the stems as far as he could into the river. Begrudgingly, he thought his coach might be proud. 

***

College baseball is a drag.

Leon Kuwata, Number 18, should be loving life right about now. His scholarship has awarded him comforts that would be otherwise unattainable; the private dorm, the generous meal plan. Campus wide, he is known as _that guy_ from Hope's Peak. You know, _that guy with the red hair, yeah, the pitcher._ He has earned the nickname **Devil** for his aggressive fastballs on the field, and also, partly, for the color of his hair. It is the only thing in appearance that truly separates him from the others. From a distance, the team is nearly identical, each in their white uniform; each with a shaved head. Leon treasures every inch of it, and really, that's all he has—a single inch. If he could, he might trade an inch off his dick for an extra on top. 

"Yo, Kuwata," one of his teammates banters, "the curtains match the drapes?"

Leon isn't in the mood.

Leon is here for three reasons. He is here to 1.) swing a bat and 2.) win national titles and 3.) be recruited for pro baseball so he can make ludicrous amounts of money. He is here for his future and his career and eventual stardom. He is _not_ here to fuck around the locker room and gossip about stupid shit and reminisce about high school. The guys usually talk about their dick or someone else's dick and what that dick has been up to (or into). Today is all about Oowada. A million rumors that may be fact, fiction, or a helping of both. Apparently, Oowada was just arrested. _Or he just got out._ But it was definitely over a girl. _Probably a high schooler._ Oowada fucks a ton of chicks. _He has an STD._ He has a tattoo on his ass. _He was recruited by Yakuza._

Leon tosses his sweat matted uniform into his duffle bag. He shrugs on his clothes before anyone else decides to inquire about his pubic hair. Practice has been over for three minutes and he can never leave fast enough. He is overcome by a wave of relief as he exits the changing room.

His phone is buzzing with notifications. One from Sayaka, another from a girl he's seeing, _another_ from a girl he thought ghosted him two weeks ago, and then some bullshit on social media. He isn't dating Sayaka anymore; they had an amicable breakup shortly after graduation. She was going to be doing a lot of tours and shows and traveling and thought it would be unfair to Leon, stuck in Tokyo playing baseball. Leon would have been cool with a long distance relationship and he thinks Sayaka knew that, too. Graduation was a good enough excuse. 

Sayaka had been his girlfriend for three years and he never fucked her. Neither of them said it, but that was the real reason for the breakup. The lack of intimacy in their relationship. Sure, he kissed her, but he usually dazed out. Sure, they did some hand stuff, but Leon never got it in. _Virginity_ , Leon thinks, _is a weird concept_. He dislikes it. The connot _ations_ and the romaniz _ations_ and the something-else _-ations_. Really, he just hasn't had penetrative sex yet. That's all it is. Girls seem to appreciate that he isn't a horn-dog like most guys on campus. They like it until they get shit-faced and grope his junk, only to be told, _I'm not really in the mood. Sorry._

He is sorry, too. He's sorry he doesn't like girls as much as he thinks he's supposed to. 

He dismisses Sayaka's text without reading it. It makes him anxious somehow.

Back at his dorm room, he opens a new tab and starts browsing porn videos. Just as he moves to unzip himself, the door bursts open. He flings his phone across the bed and tosses a pillow over his lap. 

“Kanon.” He hides his face in his hand. He doesn’t want her to see how red he is. “You really gotta knock.”

She's a regular on his visitor list. He forgot she was stopping over today. 

“Whoopsie!” Kanon giggles. She skips over to the bed and plops down beside him.

Today, Kanon is wearing a zebra print jacket and a pair of white shorts. _Short-shorts_. So short that the lining of the pockets are on full display against her thighs. She has on these fluffy, white leg warmers and then, of course, her signature hair bow. Kanon has this ability of wearing whatever she wants without looking tacky. She _should_ look like a cheap rug, but instead, she looks ready for a photoshoot. She dresses like this for attention. Not the attention of boys on the street, or in her class, or anywhere else; not even online. She dresses for Leon. He notices that she has on glitter-pink lip gloss today. He notices because she collapses on that pillow above his lap and pouts.

"Are you sad, Leon?" She strokes his stubble. "Did someone make you sad?"

He has to shave his face soon. He could easily grow a goatee or maybe a beard, but no. Nooo. He was graced with good genes, with good hair, but unfortunately, it belongs down the drain. Kanon strokes her fingers against the grain and Leon can hear that sandpaper sound in his ear. She strokes his jaw, then the space behind his ear and God, he feels sick. 

"Stop that," he groans. He pulls her hand away and in an instant, her eyes begin to well. "Sorry."

Bullshit. Kanon should be the one apologizing. The only time his cousin should be touching him is for awkward hugs during family gatherings and maybe the occasional pat on the shoulder. Familial touch. Maybe when Kanon is crying because a boy broke her heart—you know, if Kanon was normal. If Kanon ever glanced at boys that weren't him.

Leon stands and that forces her off. He takes a seat across the room and thankfully Kanon stays put. She starts blabbing about her day and Leon listens without making much eye contact. Only enough to say, _I'm listening._ He really isn't, though. When Kanon talks, she swings her legs back and forth the way a child does. He thinks that, emotionally, Kanon may still be a child. He thinks she was babied too much as a kid. He thinks she's babied, still. When she finally leaves, he gets a whiff of her perfume, the scent of freshly cut grass. She smells like a baseball field... Maybe it isn't perfume.

He decides to finally open the text from Sayaka:

**Sayaka**

_omg you'll never guess who i ran into!!_

That was sent nearly two hours ago. Belatedly, he responds: _huh? what's up?_

**Sayaka**

_ohmygod it's so crazy! i was out grabbing a few things and i saw oowada! from high school??? i almost didn't recognize him!_

Leon types: _holy shit._

**Sayaka**

_ikr?! i thought he got arrested again... i honestly can't keep up! anyway, we talked and he mentioned you! he said tell leon i said hi! aw!_

**Sayaka**

_i wish you texted sooner!! :(_

Leon types: _sorry :(_

Frowny face. Without it, he just seems like a dick. 

**Sayaka**

_it's okay i know you're busy! btw he gave me his number?? idk if he was flirting with me or not but my friends are telling me to text him!! should i???_

Leon types: _can i have his number?_

**Sayaka**

_omg sure!! he wanted to say hi to you!_

Leon plugs the number into his contacts. He wants to call him, but that would be weird, right? He agonizes over his first text, only to write: _hey, this is leon. sayaka gave me your number._

That's him shooting his shot, apparently.

He turns on his television for background noise and anxiously digs through a bag of chips, chewing them to mushy mounds. He crinkles the bag into a pointy ball then aims for the wastebasket. It hits the rim. Before he can try again, his phone chimes. 

**mondo**

_Yo_

That isn't a lot to work with. Leon feels a sudden, enormous burden to make his responding text a good one. He wonders if this is how girls feel when they're texting a guy they like.

Leon types: _what's up?_ Then immediately deletes it because what the fuck is that? _What's up?????_ Gross. He isn't doing that. 

Leon types: _i was thinking we should hang out or smth. it's been awhile._

He taps send then slaps his phone face down. Too ballsy? A minute passes. Then two. Then he wants to die. He curls up under his blankets and tells himself it was stupid, anyway. Messaging Mondo. Like Mondo would want anything to do with him. 

**mondo**

_Sure man. You free rn?_

Oh, shit.

Leon tugs on his jacket the moment Mondo gives him an address; the address to his _apartment,_ no less. It's about a 40 minute trip, Leon discovers, after plugging it into his phone. He grabs his charger and wallet and keys. When he jumps on the train, he realizes he forgot his headphones. Whatever. He spends the ride listening to the other passengers. The commuters; the salarymen and the high schoolers. A group of girls huddle around a cell phone and snicker about something on the screen. Before long, the train arrives at a stop and the group scurries off, only to be replaced by another. These girls are louder and on a dare, one of them asks Leon how old he is.

He’s twenty. That arouses their interest. He isn't interested in flirting with high schoolers and eventually they take the hint. 

He gets off a few stops later. The apartment is strange. Not a high rise or even a complex like so many are. Instead, it appears to be the upstairs of a house, with its own separate entrance. Leon double checks the address before knocking. He notices a motorcycle parked in the dirt and there is no doubt about it. After a beat, the door swings open.

"Hey, man," Mondo says, casually.

His hair is gone. 

"Yeah, man, they cut that shit right off," Mondo sort of laughs. 

So then that rumor was true. He _was_ arrested. 

Leon steps inside. The place is small and the ceiling is low, which isn't a problem for Leon, but Mondo is considerably taller. Inside here, he looks like a giant. Leon can't help but notice how huge his arms have gotten. He was always in shape, but now. _Woof._ His left arm is covered in ink; a tattoo of a tiger that begins at his shoulder then ends at his wrist. The colors are amazing, these brilliant hues of orange behind a black ocean of white crested waves. It's okay to stare, right? Art is meant to be looked at.

Mondo grabs a couple beers from the kitchen.

"Cool if we hang in my room?" He motions to the living space. "Shit's under construction."

There is a couch, but no television. Not even a coffee table or ottoman. In the corner is a few milk crates, stacked high as a makeshift shelf. It seems to be a dumping ground for miscellaneous items. Leon follows Mondo into his bedroom and it is far more decorated. Cozy, even. A full sized bed with a black, fitted sheet and matching pillow cases. A faux-fur rug on the floor. A record player spinning and humming that ambient noise of a completed vinyl. Mondo lifts the needle and it picks up on track 1. Leon recognizes the album immediately.

"I didn't know you listened to this kind of music," Leon says with an anxious laugh. An excited laugh? An anxiously-excited laugh. Not a lot of people like British punk bands from the 80's. His mother introduced him, saying this was the music she listened to in her heyday. _Know Your Rights_ by The Clash is playing and Mondo is snapping a beer open.

"Yeah, man." Then he takes a gulp. "You can sit wherever."

Leon sits on the floor. The rug is ridiculously soft. Mondo sits on his bed and the mattress bows beneath his weight. A moment passes, then another and vocalist Joe Strummer is howling about the oppressions of government and singing, _“murder is a crime—unless it was done...by a policeman!”_ It makes Leon want to ask Mondo why he was arrested. He shouldn’t. That’s rude, right? He decides to beat around the bush.

“Did you really punch a guy for your girlfriend?”

Mondo blinks. "What girlfriend?"

"I heard you had a girlfriend,” Leon shrugs. 

"Me?" Mondo snorts into his beer. He swallows a mouthful, then says, "Yeah, okay."

Leon knew half the rumors were bogus. The girlfriend part seemed legit, though. It's so easy to imagine Mondo with a girl, Leon can envision her; some hardcore chick with bright hair and piercings. Tough, rebellious and fun. Leon feels jealous for a moment, then remembers this girl does not exist. _Wait, for real?_

"For real?"

"What, did ya want her number or somethin'?" Mondo grins. "Still killin’ all the ladies, right?”

"I was never really a player," Leon frowns. Is that how Mondo sees him? "Our class sucked. People made shit up."

"About you fuckin’ Maizono?" Mondo challenges. 

"Well, she was my girl," Leon replies, quickly; defensively. "Sure, we fucked. I mean like, _kinda._ "

"How do ya _kinda_ fuck someone?"

"Did you fuck Ishimaru?" Leon shoots back. Mondo flinches and fuck—that was a bad move. Leon shouldn’t have asked that. Apologetically, he says, "I—I don't think you did, that was just a rumor—"

That was never a rumor. Leon just asked that to be spiteful. He is still jealous of Ishimaru; whenever he recalls it, he is so _unrightfully_ jealous. Ishimaru and Mondo, spending time on the roof together, sharing a lunch; a laugh; a look. Their friendship, or whatever it was, Leon shouldn’t pry about it. Honestly, he doesn’t want to know. 

"Yeah.” Mondo says with an absent nod of his nod. "Yeah, we fucked.” 

Leon doesn’t have a heartbeat. 

“I thought you were straight.”

"I like girls, but I like guys, too. Y’know what I’m saying, right?” Mondo is a big guy, but he looks vulnerable right now. A moment passes and Leon realizes that maybe he was supposed to say something. Mondo fills the gap. "We still cool?”

He hates that Mondo has doubts. 

"Cool! _Way_ cool,” Leon blurts. “Man like, don’t even trip. You are so much fucking cooler than me.”

With a relieved smile, Mondo says, “You're plenty cool.”

"No, like—" here he is, about to get ahead of himself, "like, you know who you are and stuff. That's really fucking cool. You've never been fake and I just— I've always liked that about you."

It’s true. While Leon was flirting with girls and macking on Sayaka, Mondo was, presumably, kissing boys and doing the things Leon was too frightened to consider. Mondo is brave and free-spirited and so what if he’s a troublemaker? At least he does what he wants. At least he didn’t shave his head _by choice._

Mondo clinks beers with Leon _._ "Thanks, man.”

He thinks about that sleepover, when Mondo dyed his hair then washed it in the sink... That was probably the moment. He watches as Mondo chugs the rest of his drink, Adam’s apple bob, bob, bobbing and Leon wants to put his mouth there. Instead, he buries his hand into the carpet. He really wants to say it, this thing he’s been carrying. Track 3, _Should I Stay Or Should I Go_ , begins to play and Leon feels dizzy as he hears that iconic guitar riff. 

"I—" Wait, what is he saying? Fuck, just say it. "I've had a thing for you since elementary school."

The words hang in the air. Leon thinks that now, right now, would be a good time to pass away. Mondo sets down his empty beer can. Then he leans forward. 

"Lemme kiss you." 

_Lemme do your hair._

Leon could have kissed 100 girls and it would be incomparable to kissing this one boy. Mondo has a soft mouth and his lips are smooth, but his tongue is smoother. Leon parts his mouth and lets him inside, shivers as Mondo glides his tongue on his teeth, then up to his palette. He pulls away teasingly and Leon groans, barely catching his breath before Mondo returns. He keeps doing that, dips in to play, then leaves Leon to pant. The redhead decides to chase him, he leans in just as Mondo leans away to discontinue the kiss. Apparently, that is just what Mondo wanted. He rewards this enthusiasm; he catches Leon by his piercing—yeah, his tongue is pierced; Coach allows it—and sucks. Leon is unsure why that feels so good, but it does, it feels amazing. Mondo exhales from his nose and Leon can feel the breath, ghosting his face. Mondo moans and Leon answers him, he moans back and fuck, Leon likes boys. He really, really likes boys. 

"You taste good.” When Mondo says that, it’s all air. He pulls Leon off the floor and the redhead stands between his legs. Then Mondo is looking up at him with these half lidded eyes. "Can I taste this?"

Leon can feel a hand on his hip, inching closer to his...

Holy shit.

_The Shareef don’t like it_

_Rockin’ the Casbah_

_Rock the Casbah_

Mondo Oowada is really about to give him head to The Clash’s 1982 hit _Rock The Casbah…_ God, he loves this song. 

Leon nods his consent and then they are both scrambling to unzip him. Mondo pulls him out and Leon can hear the heartbeat in his ear. He does this strangled cry—he can’t help it—as Mondo kisses his cockhead, already wet with precum. Leon is a bit self conscious about that, how wet he gets, but Mondo hums appreciatively. Mondo worships him with another kiss, then licks a stripe along the underside of his cock. He moves fast and swallows Leon in his entirety, with the complete and absolute confidence of a blowjob queen. Absently, Leon wonders, if Mondo does this a lot. Leon can feel himself in the back of Mondo’s throat, encased in wetness and warmth. Then, the tip of Mondo’s nose, buried in the coarse, blond coils of his pubic hair. He rests his hand on Mondo’s shoulder. 

He tries grasping Mondo by the hair, but his hair is gone. His hands keep trying, clutching nothing, grabbing nothing, reaching for something that no longer exists. It isn't fair. They cut it off. They took his identity and replaced it with a number, then threw him in a line of men wearing matching uniforms. Identity is a privilege and Leon knows this. He isn't sure whether he's thinking about prison or baseball anymore. 

"Mondo.”

His mouth is busy. "Hm?" 

“Can we, um—” Leon decides to put it quite frankly, “do you wanna fuck?”

The song ends. Mondo pulls off and peers up at Leon. His face is glistened with spit, but he decides not to wipe it. Somehow, it reminds Leon of Mondo, when he was still a feral boy on the playground and putting something in his mouth to gross out the class. 

“ _Kinda-_ fuck?" Mondo teases.

Leon should roll his eyes. "Actually fuck." 

"You ever fuck a guy?" No teasing this time; Mondo is genuinely asking. Shouldn’t the answer be obvious? 

"No, I'm—" A virgin. Don't say that. 

"First time?" Mondo asks. He has this excited look in his eye. Before Leon can speak, Mondo presses their lips together. “C’mere, taste yourself.”

Why is that so hot? 

Mondo tosses him onto the bed with ease. Leon flails, because no one has ever thrown him like that, as though he were a doll. He’s a lean guy, about average height. Beneath Mondo, he feels much smaller. He likes being crushed into the mattress, he likes the weight and the pressure. Leon puts his hands on Mondo, then slides his hands under his shirt. He isn’t sure where else to touch. With a girl, he might just touch her chest, squeeze her tits and whatever. He figures that might be kind of silly to do with Mondo, but he gets his hands on his pecs and damn. Okay. He squeezes and Mondo breaks out in this gorgeous smile. Leon leans in for a kiss; they bump noses; they laugh. Leon helps Mondo out of his shirt, tugs it over his head and throws it to the floor. 

His dick is still hanging out, Leon is only vaguely aware of that until Mondo spits onto it and gives it a pump. Then his mouth resumes the work from earlier. Bobbing up and down and Leon would hold back from moaning, but with Mondo, he can’t. He rocks his hips ever-so gently and lets his legs sag open. Drool is sliding down his shaft and then a fist, twisting him at the base. Mondo is making this noise, this _gluck, gluck, gluck..._ this noise from straight out of a porno. Just when Leon is getting close, Mondo pulls off, attached by a string of spit. 

“Can I finger you?” Mondo asks with a rise and fall of his chest. 

Leon nods.

Distantly, he realizes the music has stopped. Side one of the album is six tracks long. Side two contains the remaining six, which makes twelve songs in total. Mondo hops out of bed to retrieve lubricant and a condom. Before returning, he flips the vinyl, drops the needle, and the music spins on. 

Leon tries getting comfortable. He doesn’t know where to put his body anymore. Suddenly, all the _kinda-fucking_ he did in high school counts for nothing. He chucks off his pants and then Mondo is touching him, coaxing him, holding his leg open. Then comes the lubricant. The first finger is uncomfortable, but Leon waits it out. It only gets easier after that. Mondo strokes him with one hand and presses in with the other. Leon feels full. With only two fingers, he fills full. He feels warm and stretched and satiated. Mondo is still wearing pants—sweatpants, no less—and Leon can see the outline of his erection. He wonders if he could even take that. When Mondo pulls himself out, Leon feels justly intimidated. 

Mondo starts fucking him more eagerly now, he slides in a third finger and Leon whines. He might go cross eyed, too. Thankfully, there is no television or mirror to catch his reflection. Leon can only imagine how ridiculous he looks about now, twitching on the mattress. Mondo bends forward to mark his neck with a hickey and ouch, ouch, _ouch._ It hurts, but his dick is leaking and the weird pain-pleasure of it encourages Leon to cry out. Even the music can’t drown it. Mondo pulls away with a devilish grin, pausing to inspect his work. He does it again and this time, Leon wails. 

Then the front door swings open. It must be a roommate or something. 

“Not so loud, okay?” Mondo whispers against his lips. “Don’t get me wrong. You sound hot as fuck.” 

Leon does this out-of-breath laugh. Mondo laughs, too—warm and low in his chest. He pulls out his fingers and lubes up his cock and Leon watches in awe. It stings, even after all the preparation. Mondo splits him open and Leon has to bury his face into the crook of his partner’s neck. Their bare chests are touching, as close as can be. The position is a bit odd and Mondo has some difficulty rocking his hips. Leon wants it like this, though. He wants Mondo inside of him and he wants to be held like this. He wants to warm his cock. He wants to be his boy.

Everything is synchronized. For once, everything is right. He is a disconnected person; his brain in one place and his body another. Saying one thing and meaning the opposite. He is always doing things he doesn’t want to. Leon sighs as Mondo rakes his nails through his scalp. He needs to trim it soon. Then redye it. The whole miserable process of coloring hair that grows fast, but never long. Mondo kisses him chastely on the forehead. 

Maybe, in the morning, he’ll ask Mondo to be his boyfriend. 

In the morning, he wakes up alone. 

He is wearing an unfamiliar shirt. When he smells it, it smells like Mondo. He is naked from the waist down, so he wobbles to his feet and searches for his underwear, strewn somewhere along the floor. Once dressed, he spills out of the room and almost bumps heads with a blond haired man. This must be Mondo’s roommate. Leon forgets to say hi or even introduce himself. Instead, he asks:

"Where's Mondo?" 

The apartment is quiet. The record player is off, but Leon can still hear that song about jarheads and their mixed race children, that somber chorus of, _“go straight to hell, boy…”_ The Clash were anti-war. He thought his mom was anti-war, too, if she listened to deep music like that, but he was only born because she joined the military. She gave him her hair and maybe she gave him that, too. The ability to want one thing, but go for the other. 

"He went out," says the roommate. "He does this a lot."

“Does what?”

***

"Oowada's in jail again," announces Number 4.

_Swing._

"Shit, what he do now?" Number 12 asks. 

_Swing._

"I think it was another fight." 

_Swing._

"The dude's gotta be Yakuza. His tats are insane!" Number 7 comments. 

STRIKE _(you’re out)._

Back at his dorm, Leon grabs his shaving cream and razor. He cleans his face with sure strokes, but nicks his chin, anyhow. The cut blossoms. He grabs for the clippers, but not the dye. Red strands pile into the sink as he buzzes down to the roots. He’s done now. He’s blond. 

"Are you sad, Leon?" Kanon asks, arms around his neck. She is back in his room again without knocking.

She kisses his cheek and it stings, her mouth on the razor burn. "Did someone make you sad?


End file.
